Preparing for Herald of the Titans and Gear lists

I won't be updating this guide anymore until the new expansion slows down since I am busy raiding and doing max level content. I always welcome comments and questions but I may take a little bit to get back to you.

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What is Herald of the Titans?

Alfiere dei Titani is a Feat of Strength achievement that is received whenever killing Algalon in 10 man Ulduar with a group of level 80's with 226 ilvl armor and weapons no higher that 232 ilvl. It is a difficult achievement to earn that does require at least some preparation by every member of the raid before your group does its first pull. It grants the title , Herald of the Titans .

What's the Point in Doing Herald?

This is a fun activity for a guild to do to keep raiders interested while we wait for Legion raiding to start and can give you something to work on that doesn't feel as grindy as doing old reps. You get an awesome title and feat-of-strength and bragging rights!

Where Do We Start?

The easiest place to start preparing for Herald is in your capital city, get you experience locked! You don't want to have an unlucky level up on the way to raid so go ahead and just lock at 80, if you're planning on leveling this character after receiving the achievement then you can just unlock your experience later. Next, let's start replacing those heirlooms. The best place to start with this endeavor is to go ahead and grab the 2 tier 8 (226 ilvl) pieces that you can buy from the old valor vendors in Dalaran. While you're at it, check some of the other vendors. You can get a whole set of gear off vendors, it won't be great gear or best-in-slot but it will meet the criteria for the achievement. Next, grab a max-level friend and run some raids. Ulduar 10 man including hard-modes, Ulduar 25 man (excluding hard-modes), Naxxramas 10/25 man, Obsidian Sanctum 10/25 man, and Trial of the Crusader 10 man (for weapons only) are good places to start. Keep in mind, we do not have set bonuses anymore so look at stats and don't worry about being required to use certain pieces in certain slots.

So What Should My Gear Actually Look Like?

The Achievement has very specific requirements. You not only have to have a group of level 80 characters, no one higher, you must also only be wearing gear that is the same item level as what you can loot from Ulduar 10 man. This means that all of your armor slots should be ilvl 226 or lower and your weapon/off-hand should be no higher than ilvl 232. Let me make this absolutely clear, Your weapon and off-hand are the ONLY 2 pieces that you should be wearing that can go over ilvl 226, but no more than 232. Keep in mind, Val'anyr, Martello degli Antichi Re can NOT be used for the achievement.

Another thing to keep in mind is that although you don't need to be BiS to complete this achievement, this is old content which means that ilvl does matter (a little). With WoD they added this cool little formula into the game giving you bonus damage depending on your item level, your character, and intended item level for the content. You can see a more in-depth explanation here but I'll grab the relevant info and break it down here. At level 80, the intended item level is 200.

What do these mean? Well, if you throw these formulas into a graphing calculator you can see that at ilvl 200 you won't be getting any damage bonus but at ilvl 226 you'll be getting a siginificant 43% damage bonus. That's huge.

Full breakdown at 80

Item Level

Damage Bonus

Damage Reduction

200

0%

0%

205

8%

5%

210

16.6%

10%

215

25%

15%

220

33%

20%

226

43%

26%

Raid Composition and You!

PLAY WHAT YOU KNOW! There are obviously some better comps and some classes and specs that stand out as performing better for this achievement, but do not go out of your way to play an "OP class" if you don't know how to play it well. It's always better to play a slightly less "OP" class and do better dps or healing because you're comfortable. Have fun with it, don't stress about perfect raid comps and getting all the buffs. We didn't have all the buffs but we still got the kill. We didn't have a shaman for lust, we used drums. Please have fun with this achievement! Don't stress about being perfect! By no means does everyone need to be BiS but you won't get by with a full raid of 80s in heirlooms and greens. (I've tried lol). Another thing to keep in mind, all the gear I list below should be taken as suggestions. A lot of time and research has gone into choosing the best pieces with the best stat breakdown for each class BUT I can't take into consideration your specific play style. You may favor haste more than I would for example. The goal is to get as many gem sockets as possible and load yourself up with enchants. Gems and enchants are primarily where you will be able to stack your mastery/crit/haste or even pile on more primary stats depending on your playstyle and the class.

Gearing your 80

Before I dive into class specific gear I want to mention a few things. First off, you may choose to use different trinkets or rings or different mixtures of armors and set pieces. Make sure to look at the Tier 7 set bonuses for your spec. It may be more beneficial or suitable to your play style to use the 2-set bonus from both Tier 7 and 8 rather than the 4-set from Tier 8. Since we no longer have set bonuses, its all about stats. Get trinkets that you like and fit your play-style and go from there. I have also listed multiple weapons for some of the classes. Keep in mind, more gem sockets are almost always better and now with all sockets being prismatic you are guaranteed to get your socket bonuses so make sure to take them into consideration when choosing gear.

The Darkmoon Trinket

The Mazzo dei Nobili di Lunacupa which can be turned in for 1 of 4 Darkmoon Trinkets is the best in slot trinket for a majority of classes and specs. They are expensive to make or buy the cards for, but if you want fully optimized gear and have an inscriptionist willing to use the mats then by all means, go for it. Very few trinkets compare to them for DPS classes.

Crafted Gear

Ulduar crafted gear such as Cintura dei Titani and Calzature del Silenzio are BiS for pretty much everyone. Raw stat-wise, the crafted belts have the best stats and the most sockets and not many of the boots available to you will have sockets and good stats. With a few semi-expensive mats you can easily get optimal gear in these slots. I will go into each specs specific crafted gear later in the guide.

Enchants

In the tabs below I will break down enchants and what they scale to at level 80. Keep in mind, the most important enchants in these tables are the WoD Gift enchants. You just can't compare them to any other expansion for the stats they give. For the rest, use what is available or you have mats for. Don't break your bank trying to get +2 stamina if its 600 gold more and you can't afford it. All credit for these breakdowns goes to Aelobin @ Maelstrom EU. You can find him here. If you're interested in seeing his full spreadsheet breaking down every level and every enchant go here.

This is the first enchant that we come to that you have more choices to make. Depending on what expansion you have mats from and what your enchanter can do or what is available on your server you are able to choose between MoP, Cata, and Wrath.Mists of Pandaria

Flintlocke's Woodchucker is hands-down the BEST scope that you can get at this level, but this scope is ridiculously expensive on most servers because of that. It is a leveling and twinking favorite so if you have the mats or get lucky with it be happy. If you can't get it, go with one of the other options.

Gems

I'm going to make this super easy. You have 2 options for gems (if you want the best ones that is). You can use the Epic Gems from Wrath of the Lich King or you can use the Epic Gems from Burning Crusade. To get the Wrath gems you can either make friends with a jewelcrafter that has the patterns from Wrath, start doing the jewelcrafting dailies (found in the Magus Commerce in Dalaran) yourself, or find them on the Auction House. To get the Burning Crusade gems you will either need to again find a jewelcrafter with the patterns, grind up your Scales of Sands rep, or grab them off Auction House. The only different thing about the BC gems is that the only way to get the uncut gems is to run BC raids (Black Temple, Sunwell, etc). The epic gems from both Wrath and BC have the same stats and it all depends on how you decide to get yours.

Consumables

Consumables are easy too, basic rule of thumb: Cataclysm food and flasks are the best. Your best chance at getting them will be farming up the mats yourself though since Herald is just about the only reason that anyone would be making them anymore.

All of the foods give Stamina, use your next best stat to choose which one you want. e.g. Minestrone Vulcanico for mastery

Class Specific Gear Recommendations

Here is a link to my google docs spreadsheet containing gear recommendations for every class and spec (Monks and Demon Hunters coming soon) as well as recommended gems for gear. Keep in mind, the gear I have listed is the best stat-wise, but you will be putting A LOT of time into getting all of them unless the RNG-gods favor you. For example, It took approximately 18 runs for me to get both of my trinkets and 1 of my rings and I didn't get them until I already had my achievement.

So I have my gear, what now?

Just as a precaution it's always a good idea to run this little tidbit of command through in game. It will check all your gear slots and check for anything that breaks the achievements requirements.

/run c=0 for i=1,19 do d=GetInventoryItemID('player',i); if d then _,n,_,l = GetItemInfo(d);if l>226 then if i<16 or i>17 or l>232 then c=c+1 print(l,n) end end end end print(c,"issues found")

Ready to pull? Let's talk mechanics

First things first. Algalon hits hard and extremely fast so tanks will be taking a lot of damage. Next, there is a lot of raid wide damage going out pretty frequently as a result of collapsing stars and cosmic smashes. The best way for me to explain this fight is that it is a healing and tanking check. Don't let that discourage you though. As long as mechanics are done semi-well and people aren't dying to easily avoidable mechanics you will get the kill. And if you are super close to killing him but already have half the group dead, don't immediately call a wipe! My first kill, our group finished with just a disc priest and frost mage alive.

Groups usually run with 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 dps although on occassion I do see groups that choose to drop a healer for an extra dps. Keep in mind, Algalon has a short RP before combat starts after he is pulled, time pre-pots and burst with the end of the RP and not the pull. It's recommended to Brama di Sangue/Eroismo/Drums at the start of the fight.

Now on to specific mechanics. Everyone will spread out around the room for pull. The tanks will rotate every 3-4 stacks of the phase shifting debuff. When a tank takes 5 stacks he'll be phased out and shifted into the other realm. This can cause a death if he isn't ready for it.

Every 25 seconds the boss will do a Frantumazione Cosmica. This ability puts a small spinning red graphic on the ground. Everyone who is near it needs to get away. If you're hit by the ability you'll take massive damage, be shot into the air and take additional fall damage (if you managed to survive the initial blast) you'll likely die. Don't get hit by these. You can save a person hit with it with BoP and slowfalls. In my many runs, I've only ever seen tanks survive the blast and only by catching them with slowfalls and immunities have we saved them. DPS nearly always die from the initial blast damage.

In the beginning of the fight Algalon will summon 3 Collapsing Stars. It's very important that a ranged dps kills these. They cannot be killed whenever however; it's going to require communication and paying attention. Every time a collapsing star dies it does massive raid wide aoe damage, about 16k per person. Because of your small health pools, you have to make sure everyone is topped off before killing the star, and then quickly top everyone back off before the next one. If you do not kill them, they'll die on their own, causing the massive damage, usually at an inopportune time. Every time a collapsing star dies it causes a black hole to spawn. Please avoid these! They will close when people enter them, and they're very important later in the fight. My advice - assign a single ranged dps to the stars, have them communicate to healers when a star would die. They have small health pools and can easily be handled by one dps. Everyone should be mindfull of the collapsing stars, they can be kited but do not have a true aggro table and you dont want to be standing where a black hole drops.

Every 90 seconds Algalon will cast Big Bang. This move will wipe the raid, unless everyone but the current tank, or someone who can survive the blast, (Who must pop a big cooldown that is NOT an immunity cool down) goes into a black hole. Please be aware that you're only shifted for a short time. So do not enter the hole until he's about halfway through his cast. While shifted you will be taking damage so using personal cooldowns as necessary to avoid dying will help your healers out. Also there will be adds wandering around that will hit you with damage, you will need to avoid the adds, they hurt and your best defense is to run from them. After the big bang goes off threat is reset. So it's very important that the tank picks him up and re-establishes threat. My advice - A big cd on the tank like icebound, guardian of the ancient kings, savage defense, or even healer cds like pain suppression will work. A rogue is able to stay out for the blast with feint and with it talented, be careful using this method though, you will often have to also use a healer cd and/or evasion because tanks will drop threat when they go into the black hole.

This will continue until 20%, at this point you will switch into phase 2. In phase 2 everything will despawn and Algalon will summon 4 black holes in the corners of the room. Every 30 seconds an add from the other realm will come out of the holes. The tank not currently tanking Algalon will be required to pick up the adds and tank them away from the group while the group burns down the boss. It's recommended that at 20% you switch tanks, so you have a fresh tank on the boss, and have almost a full minute before he would be phase shifted and have a messy swap. It's important you kill Algalon before this point because 1 of 2 things can happen. 1) you'll have to tank swap with multiple adds, or 2) you'll have so many adds up, your raid will be overwhelmed. My advice - Blow everything. This is a major dps race at this point. If healers can afford it they should also be dps'ing.

Another big piece of advice that I have seen help a lot of groups is people having Wrath Deadly Boss Mods downloaded and enabled. It will help you better time burst and pre-pots as well as let you know when certain mechanics are happening.

Acknowledgements

A huge thank you to the original writer of the Herald of Titans preparation guide, bakhtarrh for giving me such a good jumping off point. I'd also like to give credit to the original creator of the spreadsheet of BiS gear, although I have since changed much of it he was able to lead me in the right direction when I was lost. Sadly, I have since lost that spreadsheet and don't have the creators name. Finally, I'd like to thank all the players and posters on the forums and sites like wowhead and xpoff that were always super helpful in testing gear and giving me the motivation to keep up with organizing and gathering all of this information. Another thank you to /u/SuperSirius101 from Reddit for finding the blue post about damage bonuses from item level for me.

About the Author

I am an avid altoholic and enjoy nothing more than learning from other players and teaching what I have learned. My main is a Blood Elf Assassination Rogue on Stormreaver-US who I spend most of my time on. My main-alt is my 80 twink paladin, Her holy set is full BiS Herald and her ret is full BiS Wrath gear (minus my Shadowmourne, its a work in progress!) I am always happy to answer questions, I have experience with every class. I am always open to suggestions and comments!

Commenti

Commento di Gadoink4

Is any of this likely to change for Legion? I know that legacy set bonuses are being disabled, but I imagine that the set gear is probably still the best pieces to use anyway?

Commento di heixia

Just one thing, good guide overall but wouldn't you want everyone to freeze their XP to make sure no-one who's close to level 81 accidentally hits it during the raid?

Commento di Satinelo

Hey EpicYowl,my guild are planning on making a Herald of Titans soon and we are REALLY interested on the gear changes on 7.0.We are really looking foward to it <3

Commento di Airelf

i ran your script to check all my gear ilvl and now i can't see my ilvl or buy the tier tokens from the vendor what should i do ?

Commento di Jademalo

Any advice on gauging whether or not my gear/play is suitable for the fight?I had a shadowpriest at level 80, and figured she would be good enough to pull my weight in a fight.

The average ilvl is ~222, there are a few things letting it down but nothing is below 213, and that's only the rings. Everything is gemmed and enchanted to a good degree, there are only two bits of gear without ideal enchants because frankly they're insanely priced :|

On the level 80 dummy, I can pull ~2.5k. That's using the advice on Icy Veins, though obviously without flasks, pots, or food. Shadow priests also do quite a bit more when enemies are below 35% health, so I don't really know how good a metric it is. I seem to be doing that pretty consistently without any mistakes, so I don't exactly know how much higher than that I can go.

Is this enough? With pots, flasks, food, bloodlust and including the phase below 35%, will that be sufficient to pull my weight?

Unrelated, you list Intensity with a socket as BiS weapons on both the lock and mage pages. Is this a mistake or is there a way to socket this weapon to make it comparable?

Edit:

I deleted most of this post after someone pointed out the hidden ilvl buff you get. Your Google Sheets guide notes that:

dont be put off of using gear even as low as 200 ilvl. Go for stats, not ilvl!

But your WoWhead guide contradicts this, pointing out the hidden WotLK ilvl buff, which provides a significant increase. That same paragraph on google sheets mentions tier sets and socket bonuses, as well. You might want to rewrite that whole section for people like me who were using the Sheet as a guide.

I've cropped what's still valid from my original post into quick points:

Illumination/Enlightenment can never be BiS because the +20 intellect to offhand enchant (essentially two extra gem slots) will always push a MH/OH ahead.

Commento di Gadoink4

Your spreadsheet still mentions socket bonuses, and has different colors of gems listed - worth mentioning that all gem slots are now Prismatic, so gem colors don't matter. You should always go for the gem that provides the best stat, as you'll always get the socket bonus anyway.